Recruitment site development

Project categories

WorkingMums is a recruitment web site designed to help mothers return to work. It is designed to provide a focal point for mothers by including content that will guide them through the process of returning to work and managing their work/life balance.

The site launched in March 2006 and is now in its fourth development phase. Each phase has been delivered using our Wide Area content management application. The site contains no bespoke development or hard-coded features.

The 2011 development project added e-commerce functionality to the job listing options to allow recruiters to buy a job listing or job credits on-line. We also included the option for recruiters to manage their listings and applications via the site.

Here is a quick summary of site features

Candidate registration

Employer registration

My Account area for employers to re-post jobs and view history

My Account area for candidates to maintain their career profile and manage email alerts and newsletter options

Business Zone directory for start-ups and franchisees

E-commerce functionality to post jobs and buy job credits

Interactive Q&A area for career and employment advice

Magazine area for news, articles, blogs and competitions

Regional events featured within their own micro-site

Event bookings attached to the candidate registration article

Although this site gives the appearance of being managed via a specialist application, as far as our CMS is concerned the site is a series of articles, pictures, assets (such as CV's) and e-commerce items. As such it is developed and managed in the same way as our other content-rich websites.

Jobs Implementation

The jobs section of the workingmums.co.uk website is built around three custom articles; one for candidates, one for employers and one for jobs. We use these articles to collect all of the relevant options and preferences offered by WorkingMums, and present them on the website in the form of job listings, search filters and user profiles (candidates and employers).

For the job article, each filter category is a field in the custom article make-up, along with fields to collect the employer details, company logo and application rules.

Candidate and employer features

Candidates and employers can manage their job applications and job postings by logging into their account. To deliver this functionality we create a relationship between candidate/employer articles and job articles by using an advanced CMS feature called a Linked Article Attribute.

Because we can create this relationship via the CMS, building the front of the website remains a straightforward process.

The promotional boxes on the Your Account page show above are simple CMS articles so are completely controlled by the WorkingMums marketing team.

Management features

The WorkingMums website includes a private area that is only accessible to WorkingMums staff. This area allows the sales team to manage jobs and advertisers by simply logging into the website rather than having to navigate around our content management application.

From this area staff can do the following

Approve new job listings

Edit active job listings

Manage home page promotional slots

Log in as a candidate or employer to manage details or re-post jobs

Generate activity reports based on Google Analytics data

Create bulk email messages via pre-configured templates

Generate mailing lists via a simple list-builder that is based on candidate registration data

These pages are built in the same way that we create every other page on the website, which means that the management area is just as flexible as the rest of the site and can be enhanced and developed as the site is updated.

Magazine content

In addition to the core recruitment area of the site, workingmums.co.uk includes a Business Zone directory of company listings aimed at mums who want to start their own business or franchise, advice and support on employment issues in for the form of a Q&A feature, a magazine area and a blog.

All of this content is managed using standard content management articles in the same instance of our content management application. The content for the entire site is completely integrated and the WorkingMums team can manage everything in one place.

Events micro-sites

A parallel project for WorkingMums was to create a set of micro-sites for their regional recruitment fares; workingmumslive.co.uk.

Each site consisted of a few simple pages to promote each event and to take registrations. As well as creating the web pages were able to extend the candidate registration article to include a block for event registration and seminar bookings. This meant that the mums registration data remained streamlined and mums could log into their workingmums.co.uk account and manage their seminar programme.

Since its launch in 2006, this website has developed incrementally, changing with the needs of the business and application features became available.